I think I have an innate need to argue, for one thing. Even if the other side ignores me, as is pretty much the case here. Fortunately, it's easy for me, so doesn't take too much time from better pursuits. Aside from that, I have a great need to explain myself and justify what I do. So I (perhaps too often) expound on the kind of poetry I admire and try to compose myself, just to put my thoughts on record, not to make converts to my kind of poetry. Related to this is my need to know what I'm doing as a poet. This, for me, but not for everybody, involves being able to describe what I do in words. And show why it's of value (which sometimes requires me to show why other ways of doing poetry are of lesser value).

I'm a jerk, too--so I like to annoy those I can't convert with my opinions of them. It's only fair considering how much they annoy me with their opposition to just about all I hold of value in poetry. I like to think that what I say may boost the morale of other toilers in otherstream poetry, too. Simply to know you're not alone in your belief that there are other ways to make poetry besides the certified ones has to do that for them, I would think. It certainly does for me.

Sure, my hitting the enemy over the head as caustically as I sometimes do--with words like "stasguard," for instance--might make it hard for the few who might otherwise be sympathetic to my point of view to accept it. But I have to be true to myself, and say what I feel.

In the final analysis, by far the best way to deal with stasguards is to ignore them, and make the best poems you can, knowing that in the end those poems are what will pull you ahead of the stasguards--if you're destined to pull ahead of them--not your arguments against them. So that is where I spend most of my energies, however it may sometimes seem otherwise.

COMMENTS

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